Cop­ing af­ter a ma­jor emer­gency

There are lots of ways to con­nect with peo­ple if you feel you need some help and it's ok to feel like this still and to ask for help.

Emer­gen­cies can hap­pen at any time and peo­ple re­act dif­fer­ently dur­ing an emer­gency.

We also know that peo­ple take time to re­cover from the stress of what they have been through.

Like Christchurch City District Health Board says ‘‘you are nei­ther sick nor crazy. You are go­ing through a cri­sis, and you are re­act­ing in a nor­mal way to an ab­nor­mal sit­u­a­tion’’.

An event such as the earth­quake last Novem­ber puts some of us in dif­fi­cult and dif­fer­ent sit­u­a­tions than we’re nor­mally used to. As a re­sult we might not be sleep­ing well and be a bit more on edge and jumpy.

Straight af­ter the earth­quake, some of us be­came in­volved in help­ing our fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties with­out tak­ing the time for our­selves.

Some of us are only now get­ting around to be­ing bet­ter pre­pared. Some peo­ple are still out of their homes or lost pos­ses­sions. We may still be deal­ing with in­sur­ance and some of us still can’t get back into our work­places.

Emo­tions af­ter a big event are un­der­stand­able and a nor­mal re­sponse to earth­quakes.

Five months on, with a long week­end com­ing up, and af­ter such a bad sum­mer, it’s a good time to reflect on how we are feel­ing.

You might feel ok but maybe your friends and neigh­bours could do with a hello and a smile as we har­ness pos­i­tive en­ergy - with­out try­ing to sound too ‘‘newaged’’ about it.

There are lots of ways to con­nect with peo­ple if you feel you need some help and it’s ok to feel like this still and to ask for help.

Some other cop­ing strate­gies could be con­nect with those around you – friends, fam­ily, or neigh­bours.

A five-minute chat on the street can make all the dif­fer­ence.

Be pre­pared – we can’t say it enough, if you feel pre­pared for what could hap­pen, you’ll be less anx­ious about it.

We can’t stop nat­u­ral events, af­ter all, they are what has shaped our beautiful coun­try, but we can get through them more com­fort­ably.

Put your hand on your heart – it calms stress neu­trons. Prac­tise breath­ing ex­er­cises or take time out of your busy daily rou­tine to do some­thing nice for your­self.

Prac­tise stress-re­duc­ing ex­er­cises or do an ac­tiv­ity that makes you happy.

If you have any is­sues on emer­gency pre­pared­ness you’d like dis­cussed in this col­umn, email wremo@gw.govt.nz